Bad Man
by Kizmet
Summary: Reformed or not, there are simply times when Vegeta's notion of an appropriate response is not in line with a 'good' person's.
1. Aftermath

**Bad Man**

**Afterwards**

**Disclaimer: **Character and premise are the property of Akira Toriyama. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.

**Author's Note:** "Bad Man" was the first DBZ I wrote, and for the longest time it was just a scene. I'd tried several time to fill in the rest of the story, some of those ideas showed up in other stories, well finally I've got the rest f the story. The first segment has been edited slightly to make things fit better.

* * *

The man's eyes dart fugitively around the darkened street before he steps out of the relative safety of his building. He tosses an automobile capsule on the ground and hurriedly locked himself in the vehicle. He breathes a sigh of relief as the engine started and he zooms toward the bright lights of the city.

A moment later the silhouette of a short, muscular, flame-haired man is caught in the headlights. The auto slams into the man, its front end folds up as if it had collided with a concrete pillar. The second man is completely unmoved by the impact; he holds up his hand, a ball of light forms in his palm and the roof of the car was sheered away in the blink of an eye. "How did you think this was going to end?" the second man asks in a low, almost amused voice.

"I never planned to hurt her, I swear!" the first man exclaims. "Please, Vegeta-sama, you have to believe me."

Vegeta plucks the man out of his car and tosss him onto the pavement. "Did you think that because I did as you demanded that I was a _good man_? Did you think that I would collapse from the guilt of killing for you once my mate was returned to me?" He laughs softly, "In the past I've killed a thousand times that many simply because it amused me to do so."

The man gulps and stares up at Vegeta with horror-stricken eyes; he'd heard that Bulma Brief's husband was the most dangerous man alive, he'd watched him with fascination for years and that was why he had targeted him; but the reality of Vegeta's nature is only just sinking in for him.

"Or did you think you would keep her, use her and my unborn child to control me forever?" Vegeta demands. "It was only a matter of time before I learned where you were keeping them and took them back, fool. Only a matter of time until you found yourself here."

"Please, I was desperate they were going to kill me! I had to do it. I never meant to hurt her or the baby," the man begs.

Vegeta's tone turns almost conversational. "You didn't ask anything too onerous of me; there are very few members of your species whom I wouldn't prefer dead. Killing your enemies to buy time to locate the woman meant nothing to me. I've gone to some effort to ensure that none of my-" His mouth twisted with distaste. "-allies were involved in this little charade; some of them believe in showing mercy to their enemies."

The man moans softly.

"I admit; there have been times when I have worried that the woman and the boy had made me soft, but not tonight. I stopped killing for her. I've even given up the idea of killing my rival simply because he is her friend and his younger brat is my son's friend, but I feel no inclination to show you mercy. You would have been better off to let your enemies kill you, because _I_ will make you beg me to take your life and end your agony," Vegeta states.

"It was just a bluff, I never meant to hurt her! They were the scum of the earth, you did the world a favor by killing them, I swear it!" the man blubbers.

"Moron, this is not because of what you had me do," Vegeta snaps. "I'm not even doing it because you threatened my mate, although I certainly will kill anyone who dares to endanger her. I'm doing it because you had the audacity to think that you, a sniveling human, could command the Prince of all Sayian-jins. And when your surviving enemies see the pictures of your body in the newspapers they will know the price of blackmailing me. I despise wasting my time on weaklings."

Vegeta takes a step toward the cowering man, "You can start screaming now," he says.


	2. Three Years Prior

**Bad Man**

**Three Years Prior: Welcome to Capsule Corp**

**Disclaimer: **Characters and premise are the property of Akira Toriyama. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.

**Author's Note:** "Bad Man" was the first DBZ I wrote, and for the longest time it was just a scene. I'd tried several time to fill in the rest of the story, some of those ideas showed up in other stories, well finally I've got the rest f the story. The first segment has been edited slightly to make things fit better.

* * *

It's his very first day of work at Capsule Corp. The lobby is bright, airy and intensely modern. Bulma Briefs, the VP of Capsule Corp herself meets the group of new hires. Three of them are college interns, just there for the summer. Not him, he is permanent, full time.

"The first thing I want to say is: Welcome to Capsule Corp. And follow me." Ms. Briefs leads them to a room that reminds him of a lecture hall except for the comfortable chairs and the cutting-edge, two-way holoconferencing equipment.

The speech is standard introductory stuff. He's surprised someone as highly ranked as Bulma Briefs would waste her time with it. He wonders if it's because of him. He is going to be working in her lab group. He's heard she is still extremely involved in the day-to-day stuff even though she's taken over running the business side of Capsule Corp in everything but name. Formally Dr. Briefs is still the president, but no one had seen him deal with anything outside of his personal lab for years. That's the rumor anyway.

Fifteen minutes into the speech the door to the lecture hall bursts open. "Woman, your combat-bots are crap," the speaker is short, so heavily muscled that he barely seemed real and his black hair crowns his head in a strange flame-shape.

Ms. Briefs gives the intruder a look that is equal parts fondness and exasperation. "Fine Vegeta. I'll fix your toys."

And then she leaves, without a word of explanation. Five minutes later one of her managers takes her place.

Nothing the manager says penetrates the fog of shocked amazement. Still when the manager asks "Are there any questions?" It isn't him who replies. "What the hell was that?"

The manager grins wryly. "I suppose if you're going to work here you ought to know. _That_ was Vegeta. And you won't find the rules for dealing with him in that pamphlet I handed out." Later he'll come to realize most of Capsule Corp's employees sound the same when they mention Vegeta. They're terrified of Vegeta and at the same time strangely fond of him, he's their own private Big Foot or Loch Ness Monster. More than half legend even though his existence was simple enough to prove.

"First: Don't talk to him if you can avoid it. If you can't find a way to avoid him, call him Vegeta-sama. We don't know his family name, he might have taken Ms. Briefs' name when they married, we don't know, we don't ask. But he's never killed anyone for addressing him as Vegeta-sama, so we go with that. Second: Don't disagree with him..."

* * *

There's a wet sound of a skull cracking against concrete. The dark haired fighter goes down and he doesn't get up. Light from the uncovered bulbs hanging from the rafters gleams off of sweat and blood. The crowd screams, hungry for more of the later.

He crumples the ticket in his hand and lets it drop to the floor.

* * *

**Two and a Half Years Prior **

Ms. Briefs' lavender haired son and his dark haired best friend tear through the lab like a couple of demons.

"Viva la No Dentists!" the little boy shouts as he and his friend scramble into the air vents.

A few moments later Vegeta stalks into the room.

Silently he points to the air duct.

Vegeta doesn't acknowledge him. There's something uncomfortably predatory about the dark-haired man as he crosses the lab. He thrusts his hands through the wall and drags out two squirming boys like they're a pair of mice.

"Are you Saiyans or not?" Vegeta demands.

"We saw the TV," the lavender-haired boy states. "Dentists drill holes in your mouth and yank out your teeth."

" 'Specially if you eat too many sweets," his friend adds. "And me and Trunks snuck a whole lot of cookies."

"Goten!" Trunks hisses. His friend is obviously too honest for his own good.

"You will face this Dentist without fear," Vegeta begins but the boys trade a look and simultaneously slip out of their coats and sprint in opposite directions.

He gets the impression of a weapon uncoiling as Vegeta moves.

Both boys are dangling in Vegeta's grasp again. They're nursing smarting raps to the skull as well. "You have a choice: face the Dentist or face me."

Vegeta releases the boys and they obediently fall in behind him. "Put your jackets on. The woman will give me hell if I let you outside without them in this season."

He bites the inside of his cheek until he can taste blood to keep from laughing. He's certain Vegeta will kill him if he laughs. But the last comment was so, so humanizing. So at odds with the picture everyone paints of Vegeta.

* * *

Another ticket falls to the floor. But this time he's met at the door.

"Another looser? For a smart guy you sure can pick 'em."

"I get my check next week. I'll pay you then. You know I'm good for it."

* * *

**Two Years Prior**

"I'm sure we can talk this out." He doesn't know how Ms. Briefs can sound so calm when there's a man standing in the middle of her lab with a bomb strapped to his chest.

"Your company sells weapons to the enemies of my country."

"Capsule Corp has never sold weapons."

"You lie."

"Do you want a tour of our manufacturing plants? Our labs? We do not make weapons. You're making a mistake coming here."

"I do not-"

The windows shatter. Vegeta is standing beside his wife.

He doesn't know how Vegeta even got into the room. The lab is six stories up. And if Bulma Briefs seemed calm in the face of a suicide bombers... well, her husband seems downright amused, although there's a malicious under-current to his smile as he drops something on the floor.

"Please, try putting another finger on that trigger. See what happens."

The look on the suicide bomber's face is shock so deep that he isn't even aware of the pain yet. His hand is fountaining blood. It was his thumb that Vegeta dropped to the floor.

"Vegeta, you ripped his thumb off."

"So what, woman?"

"Could you at least cauterize it or something?"

"Why should I?"

"Please? And could you get rid of the bomb too? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

Vegeta snorts at Bulma's childishness, then he surrenders to her wishes. He does - something - and the room is full of the smell of burnt flesh. The bomber is screaming in earnest now as his nerves catch up with what happened. Vegeta rips the bomb off him none too gently, then walks back to the window and tosses it outside. It vanishes up into the clouds even though it appeared that Vegeta had only given the thing a light toss.

After a second Vegeta raises his hand and a beam of energy flies from it.

There's a flash of an explosion in the distance and he counts: One Mississippi, two Mississippi. Like determining how far off lightening is by timing the difference between the flash and the sound of the thunder.

According to his count Vegeta tossed the bomb three miles into the sky.

* * *

"It's just a few weeks 'til my pay check guys. You know I'm good for it."

"You make good money Smarty-pants, but you lose better money."

"Just... give me some time. I'll figure something out."

* * *

**One and a Half Years Prior**

He was always amazed by Ms. Briefs' energy. No matter how busy they were she always had a few personal projects going on the side.

Her latest project had started with one of the strange monocle-things she sometimes played with. Alien tech he'd heard. He'd never learned what they were supposed to do, exactly, but Ms. Briefs seemed to use them mostly to find her son when he was up to mischief.

The new device isn't so compact. It's about the size of a shoe box with several antenna and a small dish poking out of it.

"Test time," Ms. Briefs chimes. She grins at everyone in the lab. "Cross your fingers for me." She flips the switch then frowns. "Damn, it's not picking up anything. Maybe it's because there is nothing to see? Hmm, I never thought about what it would read if there wasn't anyone suppressing their ki within the device's range."

She spends several minutes tinkering with it.

From the outer office they hear Vegeta's voice. "What happened to her?" he demands furiously.

"N-nothing's happened. I swear!" one of the secretaries stammers in terror.

"What is with him," Ms. Briefs mutters as she stalks out of the lab. "Vegeta have you gone nuts? Put that poor woman down! NOW!"

"What are you," Vegeta demands. "I see Bulma but you have no ki."

"You aren't sensing me?" All the irritation vanishes from Ms. Briefs' voice. "Oh! Wait a sec." She rushes back into the lab, Vegeta following close behind her, and switches her new gadget off.

And Vegeta still looks about as friendly as a pitbull, but compared to a few seconds earlier he's positively relaxed. "What the hell is that thing woman?"

"It was supposed to detect suppressed ki. It works on the same principle as a radar, it broadcasts a signal then interprets the echo. I guess the broadcast signal must hide any ki-signatures near it."

"Give it to me," Vegeta demands.

"What are you planning?"

"I'm going to reduce it to it's component molecules."

"Oh no you're not! I can block your ki sense. This is interesting."

"If it ever gets turned on again, I will destroy it. I will destroy every note you ever made about it."

"Fine."

* * *

He hands over a stack of papers. "Will this settle my debt?"

His bookie thumbs through the documents. "Industrial espionage? Mr. Smarty-pants, you surprise me."

"I told you I'd figure out something," he says.

"It's not really my line of business. I wouldn't know how to appraise this," the bookie insists. "I do have some connections though. How 'bout I knock off a forth of your debt as a show of good faith. If those guys I know say it's worth more than that... well we'll see."

"You'll see, it's worth ten times what I owe."

"We'll see."


	3. Interludes with Friends and Family

**Bad Man**

**Disclaimer: **Characters and premise are the property of Akira Toriyama. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.

**Author's Note:** I do write Vegeta as being protective of his family, but that doesn't mean I see it as a fully positive thing. Particularly not early on. Vegeta is distinctly _not _protective of Bulma and the baby-Trunks during the Android Saga, and Mirai-Trunks gets pretty upset with him over that. But that's before Vegeta sees Cell kill Mirai-Trunks. When Trunks dies, Vegeta momentarily forgets that Trunks can be brought back, he forgets tactics, he forgets self-preservation. Losing his kid hurt, and I don't Vegeta realized that it would, either he didn't realize that he had come to care about them, he thought he could just turn off his feelings if they became bothersome or he was so unfamiliar with caring about other people that he couldn't comprehend the pain of loss until after it had happened.

After that experience I tend to think Vegeta would take pains to avoid having it happen again. Not so much because he cares about them and wants them to be safe, but because he knows it will hurt him if anything happens to them. Further I think Vegeta would be very uncomfortable with having that sort of vulnerability. I tend to think Vegeta allowed Majin Bobbity to take him over because he saw it as a way of ridding himself of feelings that make him uncomfortable as much as because he gained power by doing it. But as Goku points out, even while he was under Majin Bobbity's thrall he still did care about Bulma and Trunks.

After the Buu Saga (which is when this story occurs), Vegeta is definitely protective of his family. He's proven that he'd die to protect them. He's had a screaming fit because Goku saved Dende, Hercule and a dog instead of Trunks and Goten... I think Goku's thought process was a long the lines of they'll beat Buu and use the Dragon Balls to fix all the damage he's caused, so it's not a big deal if the kids are dead for a few hours, where Vegeta, who has lost a lot more fights than Goku, might be thinking more a long the lines of if they DON'T beat Buu at least Trunks and Goten will be safe and Trunks is half of all the people Vegeta cares about, so saving him is a fairly big accomplishment in Vegeta's mind, even if the rest of the Earth dies. I think his revelation during the Buu Saga was that he cares more about Bulma and Trunks' well-being than about his own, at that point he switches over from protecting them because they're his hostages to fortune and starts protecting them for their own sake.

* * *

**One Year Prior: Interludes with Friends and Family**

He makes a habit of coming to work early, or staying late, or dropping by on weekends. That way it doesn't stand out if he happens to be at the lab during off-hours when things get leaked. It's just that he's one of those odd, scientist types who just has to come in and try things whenever he gets an idea. Not that he's in any way connected to the occasional security breeches Capsule Corp has been suffering. Of course not, not him. He's as innocent as a new-born babe. Or at least that's the image he does his best to project.

That's how he happened to overhear that particular fight. Fights between Ms. Briefs and her husband are nothing uncommon. There's hardly a person in the company who hasn't heard the pair of them screaming insults at the top of their lungs at each other. It doesn't mean much, the general consensus is that Ms. Briefs and her husband are simply the type who see friction as simply a means of generating heat. To all appearances they like quarreling. They need the acknowledgment that both of them are stubborn, strong-willed individuals. They honestly seem to enjoy coming up with creative ways of insulting one another.

And it's not as if there aren't rules to their quarreling, rules which both Ms. Briefs and her husband follow scrupulously. They've all seen Ms. Briefs bite back words when their tempers run too high. They all know Vegeta's physical power is beyond comprehension, but he won't touch his wife while they're quarreling. They've all lost count of the number of times he's demanded Ms. Briefs' immediate attention, but no matter how heated th quarrel gets he's never once used physical force to make her come with him.

Normally it's easy not to walk in on one of their quarrels unexpectedly because anyone not hard of hearing can hear the fights from two rooms down. It's easy to hear them and easy to avoid them. Which is why he's so shocked when he walks into the lab and sees Ms. Briefs and her husband glaring at one another from opposing ends of a lab bench.

"It's a moronic idea," Vegeta makes his opinion sound like a statement of fact.

"Explain it to me, o Brilliant One, because I happen to think it's a damn good idea," Ms. Briefs snaps, her voice is low and tightly controlled.

"The boy is sufficient."

"Right, you have a strong heir. Which means you fulfilled the expectations of your _dead_ culture, which even you know was completely fucked-up. What other reason could be needed?"

He knows he should be backing away, quickly and quietly. But he can't. He's never heard Ms. Briefs reference her husband's past without immediately censoring herself before.

"I stopped giving a damn about what _they _expected from me the day they proved themselves too weak to survive." Vegeta is not shouting, the raspy growl is thousand times worse than shouting. "The boy was not about what_ they_ expected of me. Back then, I didn't want the boy at all, neither did you. There was no plan, no desire. We had him, it worked out, he is sufficient. There is no need for another."

"Well maybe I want another. You never give a damn about what I want."

"The hell I don't."

"You won't even discuss it."

"What do you call this?"

"My lord Prince getting on his high horse and declaring 'No', does not constitute a discussion."

"Your body is insufficient."

"Oh really?" her tone is deadly.

"Stop being stupid, you know what I mean. I prefer not seeing you cut open on an operating room table."

There is a long silence. The feeling of anger that had filled the air disperses in the silence.

"Vegeta," she sighs. "I fell down a flight of stairs. It was just a freak accident."

"Cause by our lack of compatibility in this matter. It would not have happened had you been Saiyan- or if I were not Saiyan."

"I wasn't really having any problems-"

"Other than nearly dying."

"-prior to the stairs. Sure it was uncomfortable, but my doctor said it was safe enough."

"Staircases are normally deadly?"

"I'll know what to watch out for this time."

"I don't want another brat."

"You didn't want Trunks before you got to know him."

"No."

"Wouldn't it be neat to have a little girl?"

"Absolutely not."

"Vegeta!"

"No."

Quietly, carefully he slips away. Getting caught engaging in industrial espionage, would be bad. But not as bad as getting caught overhearing Vegeta admitting how much he actually does care about his wife.

* * *

**Six Months Prior**

"Ms. Briefs, there is a Ms. Videl Satan here to see you," the receptionist from the lobby announces. "She says to tell you that a Ms. Chichi said 'since you couldn't make it to your training session the session has come to you'."

Ms. Briefs grins up at the intercom. "Thank you Memorada, please send her straight up. Actually could you provide her with an escort. I don't believe Videl-chan knows the way yet."

The name 'Videl Satan' would stop conversation in any setting, but at Capsule Corp, particularly in the lab of Bulma Briefs, the reaction is slightly different than the reaction of the planet at large. There is no one on the face of the Earth who hasn't heard the name Satan, not after the Cell Games, but the people who work at Capsule Corp had eventually recognized as Vegeta one of the other group of fighters who came to oppose Cell. Every year that Trunks Briefs gets older, the theories about the lavender-haired fighter get more elaborate. Some people at Capsule Corp have even recognized the 'Delivery Boy' as Ms. Briefs' young friend Son Gohan. A few of the company's long time employees recognized Son Goku as the first fighter, first real fighter, who'd opposed Cell. They all know that the techniques employed by Cell and the group of fighters who came to oppose him were not tricks, regardless of what Satan might have said after the fact. No one at Capsule Corp can image why Ms. Briefs would be so happy to welcome a Satan.

The girl who walks through the doors a few minutes later is a surprise as well. She's a slight thing, with cropped pixie-like hair and alert blue eyes. She carries herself with confidence, but politely thanks the security guard who escorted her up to the lab before turning to Bulma.

Without waiting for a by-your leave, Ms. Briefs slips the notebook the girl carries out of her hands and begins thumbing through it. "So, have you found the dress yet?" she asks.

The girl, Videl, snatches the book back and hugs it to her, her cheeks turn bright red.

"Well, have you?" Bulma presses.

Videl sighs heavily. "No, I'm going to check out some shops in Metro West after we're done."

"I wish I could offer to go with you," Bulma says.

"It's so impossible!" Videl exclaims. "I want to find a long, flowing, dress that's me! It's an oxymoron!"

"Not on your wedding day, dear," Bulma replies. "You did find a dress for Prom, remember?"

"Ten minutes before Gohan picked me up for dinner that night," Videl replies. "Which is why Erasa made me swear I'd start looking for a wedding dress about thirty seconds after she stopped squealing ecstatically when I asked her to be my maid of honor. She's taking me shopping for make-up, I agreed to let her take me shopping for make-up. It's insane."

Bulma grins. "So how is your dad doing?"

"He's still breaking into tears every time he notices the ring." Videl shakes her head. "You'd think I was moving to Tibet, the way he carries on. It's not as if he's never going to see me again."

Videl adopts a stern look. "But that's enough about me. Is there some place in here where we'll have enough room to work out? And are you wearing your weights like a good girl?"

"Of course. Vegeta admitted my ki's nearly doubled in the last six months... Then he says something about twice nearly nothing is still nearly nothing, the jerk. But, anyway, I feel ten years younger. Even if this wasn't the only way to get Vegeta to talk rationally about having another baby it still was the best idea I've had in a long time."

Bulma giggles. "Trunks thinks I want to compete in a tournament. Vegeta and I decided that we wouldn't mention anything to him until we'd reached an agreement." She shakes her head. "Vegeta's being so over-protective. If it weren't so annoying it would be incredibly sweet."

"Is he being over-protective?" Videl asks. "I mean, does he have something to worry about?"

"I fell down a flight of stairs," Bulma protests by route. Then she stops. She sighs. "It's about strength differential. I'm average, Trunks never was. It wasn't an issue for Chichi, she was a finalist in the World's Strongest Tournament, you don't get that far with average strength. It won't be an issue for you either."

Videl glances away, embarrassed that she was so transparent.

"What Vegeta won't admit is that the only reason I got hurt was because I was being stupid, careless too. Trunks wasn't doing me any real harm. Oh he'd kick someplace tender and my knees would go out from under me, but it was mostly from the shock. It had happened before, I should have known to stay away from staircases. Vegeta's getting worked up over nothing. This time I know better. Nothing's going to happen."

"Knock on wood," Videl remarks. She matches word to deed and raps on the faux-wood counter-top.

* * *

**Two Months Prior**

The window shatters in a spray of glass. Bulma groans and buries her head in her arms. The rest of the lab group hide their grins and continue going about their business. They might be amused, but they aren't crazy.

"Hello Vegeta," Bulma says. "So sweet of you to drop by the lab and check on me. Someone dropped a beaker and it startled me."

Vegeta does his best to look impassive, but there is still a faint air of embarrassment about him.

"I love that you worry about me and the baby," Bulma continues. "But next time I get a little surprised could you use the door? Or at least the same window you broke last time?" She points to the boarded up window two panes down from the one Vegeta had flown through.

Vegeta turns on his heel and flies back out the window without a word.

Bulma throws up her hands in frustration. "Arrgh!! How do I make him stop over-reacting without upsetting him? Just for the rest of the pregnancy I wish I could be married to an optimist. I swear, one of us is going to be insane before this baby is born. And I'm honestly not sure who'll crack first."

Still, no one laughs. But more than one person is seriously tempted.

* * *

**One Week Prior**

"It's been a while since you brought me anything," the bookie remarks. "You're debts are starting to pile up again."

"If you'd just give me a fair value."

"Now, now Smarty-pants, I'm just a middle man. I take what you give me and pass it on. I don't get the whole pie, just a cut."

"That last tidbit I passed on to you cost Capsule Corp a million dollars."

"Do you get paid the whole of what you make for the company? No," the bookie answers himself. "You don't get the whole of what you cost them either. It's just the way of the world. Don't complain to me about it."

"I'm worth a lot to you."

"Not lately."

"Look, they know there's a leak. I lay low for a while, let things blow over and I can make you money later. Or I can try now, get caught then I'm in jail and you're out of luck."

"It's bad business, leaving a debt like yours hanging. You know that by now."

"...How about I get you something different."

"Like?"

"A fighter," he takes a deep breath. "The likes of which you've never dreamt of."

"Sounds like me doing a favor for some friend of yours."

"Do you honestly think I'd send a friend into that cage? I see how the losers leave."

"So this guy's not a friend. How do you plan to get him here?"

"That's my problem, your problem is making it worth my while."

"I gotta admit, you got me curious," the bookie says. "But I don't make money off 'curious'. You bring this guy of yours and we'll see."

"'We'll see.' Like always huh?"

"You're starting to catch on. You smarty-pants types are always a bit slow when it comes to the real world."

"Yeah, I've been a little slow, I admit. But I've got the idea now."


	4. Now Worlds Collide

**Bad Man**

**Now: Worlds Collide**

**Disclaimer: **Characters and premise are the property of Akira Toriyama. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.

* * *

Bulma wakes up doubled over clutching her stomach. For several long minutes the only thing she is aware of are the violent, panicked movements of the child within her.

"Vegeta? Vegeta!"

She rubs the still small swell of her belly, trying to sooth the baby. "Shh, shh, baby. Just a little while. We'll figure out what's wrong. Just a little bit. Please stop kicking me."

She waits expectantly. Trusting Vegeta will be there momentarily, that he'd get her whatever help she needs.

When he doesn't come Bulma forces herself to focus on things outside of her body.

It is dark. She is lying on the floor. The air smells of dust and disuse. A small bit of light seeping in through cracks around the door. The faint impression of shelves among the shadows. A storage closet of some sort?

Kidnaped? Knocked out somehow. So quickly she hadn't realized, her ki hadn't reacted to alert Vegeta. But she is aware now. The baby, who's ki was already stronger than hers, had been upset for sometime judging from how battered her abdominal muscles feel.

'What happened? Why isn't Vegeta here?'

Bulma bites her lip as she forces herself to the door. Locked, of course.

She bangs against it with the heel of her hand. "Let me out! Something's wrong! My baby, something's wrong with the baby!" she shouts.

* * *

"I told the woman that if she _ever_ turned that damned machine on again there wouldn't be enough of it left to a micro-sphere," Vegeta snarls to himself.

It has to be the damned machine. One second Bulma's ki was perfectly normal, burning bright and steady in the back of his awareness, even if it was almost eclipsed by the ki of the child she carried. The next moment it was gone, simply gone.

Just because he's ticked off Vegeta flares his ki a moment before he would have hit the wall of windows outside of Bulma's lab. Instead of smashing a single pane of glass every window within fifty feet of him shatters. The Capsule Corp building is left looking like it had been struck by a giant meteor.

Vegeta stalks into the lab. "Where is my wife? Where is the damn machine?" he demands angrily as the people in the lab dive under their desks, as if Vegeta's ire could be protected against as easily as an earthquake.

Not seeing Bulma, not capable of finding her without her ki to act as a beacon, Vegeta drags the nearest body out from under a desk.

"Please, don't kill me," the man squeaks.

Vegeta rolls his eyes and forces himself to moderate his tone. It does him no good if the idiot faints from shear terror without first talking. "I do not plan to kill you," he states. "Where is Bulma? Where is her damned ki-blocking machine?"

"I don't know! I don't know! I'm sorry!"

"When was the last time you saw her? Any of you?" Vegeta demands as he let the man drop.

One of the scientists sticks her head out from under her desk just enough to peak at Vegeta. "But you always know where Ms. Briefs is," she states. "You always go right to her."

Vegeta grits his teeth. "I cannot sense her, her or the child. If it is not that machine or another like it, she is dead. Tell me where you last saw her, now or-" He breaks off uncertainly.

He can't destroy the whole planet. If Bulma is dead a part of him wants nothing more than to destroy the entire world, even if it meant suffocating in space himself a few hours later. But regardless of what has happened to Bulma the Earth is still Trunks' home, and he won't harm it. If he tries going on a killling spree like he would have done when he was younger Kakarrot or his older brat will try -will- stop him. But if Bulma, his Bulma is dead there will be repayment, there will be blood.

"Y-you, no we. We need to call Security. The building is monitored, if Ms. Briefs disappeared rom here there will be something on the their tapes."

"Summon them," Vegeta orders.

A particularly brave member of the lab group crawled out from under his desk and picked up the phone.

* * *

Forty minutes later Vegeta is standing outside the surveillance room glaring at the closed door. His presence in the room did not make things go faster. Capsule Corp Security Personnel had enough pride in their image to refrain from diving under desks when Vegeta spoke to them, in fact he'd noticed more than a few of them staring at him with expressions of near awe, but Vegeta quickly came to realize that they were all distracted by him. So he was stuck standing in the hallway, hoping a bunch of humans could tell him something useful, unable to even go in the room because his mere presence had the potential to drive whatever intelligence they might possess out of their skulls.

"Uh - Vegeta-sama, I think we found something," one of the security people announces awkwardly. To Vegeta, he looks like a puppy, hoping for praise. Trunks occasionally does the same thing.

"Show me," Vegeta demands harshly. He's never responded to Trunks' desire for praise either. The brat should know when he's done something well, he shouldn't depend on others to tell him as much.

They show him a small clip of video: Bulma falling asleep at her desk. By the next sweep of the camera she's gone. There is no further indication of her presence in the building, the time stamp on the footage indicates it happened five minutes before her presence disappeared from Vegeta's awareness.

"This is useless," he states.

In the background a phone rings. One of the security personnel has shut his eyes, he's waiting to be killed.

"Vegeta-sama, er, well, it's for you."

Vegeta stares at the phone that's being held out to him for a moment before accepting it. "What?"

"I have your wife."

Vegeta doesn't say anything. He understands they want something from him in exchange for Bulma. Anything he says will just confirm that they hold something he values. He listens instead, for anything that might tell him where they've taken her.

"I can prove it."

A few short seconds later Bulma's voice comes over the line. "Vegeta, where the hell are you?"

There's pain and panic in her voice.

"I told you that damn machine was trouble," he states.

"If you want her back you have to do something for me. You don't want me to explain it now. Go home. I'll call with further instructions."

Vegeta crushes the phone in lieu of hanging up. "Determine who else is missing."

"What - what do you-"

"She was taken from here. She is being hidden with one of her machines." Vegeta hopes they're bright enough to understand him, if not they're useless.

A wince, several grim looks, a nod. They don't like hearing it was an inside job, but no one argues with Vegeta's logic and not just because he scares the hell out of them.

"Find a way to contact me with information."

There is a pause for several seconds. Then the puppy-dog offers a compact device. "Do you want my cell-phone? Just hit this button when it rings."

Vegeta accepts the device. He should have realized they had com-devices, but it's been a long time since he bothered to use something of that nature. The planet is so small, but these humans can't simply sense his ki and fly to his position. As he leaves he over-hears another member of the security personnel say "Call everyone who has your number and tell them not to use it if they value their lives."

It takes him just over three minutes to return to his home compound and to round up Trunks and the woman's parents.

"Go to Kakarrot, stay there until I give you permission to do otherwise," Vegeta orders.

"Dad, what's going on?"

The elder Briefs exchange a silent look. "Trunks, why don't you get some of your things," Bunny suggests as she leads the boy away.

"Has something happened to Bulma?" Dr. Briefs asks.

"She and child will be fine." He won't fail to protect his family again. "I don't want the lot of you underfoot."

"Yes, yes, I quite understand," Dr. Briefs replies. "We'll make certain that Trunks stays where Goku can keep an eye on him."

They've barely left when the phone rings. "You again?" Vegeta asks.

"Yes. I - I want you to kill several people for me. I wouldn't k- this is a last resort. They were never going to let me go. This is the only way I can save myself."

"I don't care why. Who?"

"I'm faxing you their pictures now. You'll find them at the address provided. It's a warehouse twenty miles south of Metro West on highway 18. It's a pit fighting arena, they think you're coming to fight for them. But the only way I'll ever be free is if I kill them."

"You would have done better to kill them yourself."

"I can't, I'm not- I've seen you do things that are inhuman. If you do this for me I'll release your wife."

"Killing is not bothersome."

* * *

It feels like she's been trapped there for eons. After discovering that the door was locked Bulma moved just far enough from it so that it wouldn't hit her if anyone ever opens it.

She sits curled protectively around her swollen belly and talks to the child, tries to calm her. Because whatever is wrong, the baby's agitated struggling can't be making it better. It's not the normal kicks of a healthy child, it's a sign of distress and Bulma can't think why or how the baby could be aware of the mess they're in.

Finally, finally the door cracks open. Bulma's eyes water at the sudden influx of light. She squints, sees the silhouette of a man. After a moment she's able to make out the ski mask, the phone he's holding out to her, and the gun pointed at her.

"Talk to your husband," he orders.

"Vegeta, where the hell are you?" Bulma exclaims.

"I told you that damned machine was trouble."

The phone is snatched away. 'Should have told him about the baby.'

'That damned machine? Which machine? In answer to why he's not here. The one that blocks ki-sensing. He can't sense me.'

Bulma watched the door swing shut, trapping her in darkness again. She feels numb. Vegeta didn't know how to find her. All the Z-Fighters depended on their ki-abilities to the exclusion of all else. None of them would be able to help.

* * *

The night had been fairly average so far. The only thing that broke from the routine of preparations for the fights was the arrival of Smarty-pants' guy. The guy looked unprepossessing, he was short, his eye-level hit most of the fighters around mid-chest and he was wearing loose, casual clothes. The manager decided to use him in a warm-up round. A quick blood-bath always got the crowd in the right frame of mind.

'This guy is dead,' the bookie thought. 'Odd, he's totally calm. He should be a wreck, even experienced fighters get edgy. They know someone'll leave the ring on a stretcher at best.'

He joined Smarty-pants' guy by the ring. Up close there was a startling intensity to the guy. "So what do you think of the set up."

"I was unaware such places existed on Earth."

"You do understand the rules, the fight only ends when one guy can't make it back to his feet."

"Yes. Killing is not outside of your rules in this place, correct?"

The question, asked with completely casualness, causes a shiver to go down the bookie's spine. "No, we'll take care of any bodies. Could be you as easily as the other guy. They've got experience at this sort of thing."

"No, they do not."

When the new guy is summoned into the ring the bookie feels a sense of relief that makes no logical sense.

The new guy stands there looking totally out of place and completely in control.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" his opponent demands, insulted by the lack of fear.

"Warming-up. It's been years since I've killed. Much, much longer since I've bother to single out an individual so pitifully far below myself."

It's not a fight. For the entirety of it no one says a thing. They're too shocked as they watch the short, casually dressed man methodically and effortlessly dismantle an experienced pit-fighter nearly twice his size. Even here cold-blooded murder comes as a shock and there is no other description for what they're seeing, as impossible as it is for them to believe.

The bookie can't help thinking, 'How could someone like Smarty-pants know a psychopath?'

Then it's over and the new guy is walking out of the cage. Without a word he takes the bookie by the elbow and escorts him outside. The bookie knows he should try to run, fight or maybe just scream, but he's too stunned to react. And even more, after what he just saw, he knows it would be pointless.

They step out the door and the next thing the bookie knows they're on the roof.

"The one who sent me here, tell me about him."

"What?"

"You may consider what you saw as a demonstration of what I'm capable of. Or as practice for what I intend. I've never tortured one of your kind, I wished to determine what I can break without causing death."

"But he sent you, you must-"

"Answer my question or I start on you. You will also tell me everything about the ones you work for."

* * *

'Sensing ki is second nature to Saiyans. Goku saw the Kamehameha once, just once and was able to replicate it. Vegeta learned that it was possible to evaluate battle strength without a scouter and almost instantly developed the knack for it.'

'My machine blocks ki-signatures. Vegeta can't find me. My ki has surrounded the baby since she was conceived, now she can't feel it. She thinks I'm gone. Everything familiar to her is gone and she's fighting. She's fighting, with everything she has. Why am I not?'

Determinedly Bulma begins running her fingers over the door, locating the hinges, the latch. In her head she calculates the point where it will take the least pressure. She thanks the Kami for Saiyans' all or nothing growth patterns which mean that the baby is still tiny even though she's only a month short of delivering. "Alright Chichi, let's see if you managed to teach me anything," Bulma mutters. She spins around to gather momentum and kicks the door with every last ounce of strength she can muster.

The door splinters, Bulma shrieks. She pushes against it and, grudgingly, the door topples over. Certain she's broken her heel as well as the door, Bulma hobbles out of the closet where she's been held captive for nearly a day now.

And runs straight into her kidnapper. For a moment her gaze fixates on his gun, then his face. "Andrew Deshay? You? Why?"

"Ms. Briefs, you weren't supposed to see me."

She knows him, sees him damn near every day in her lab. She knows him.

"So now what Andrew? Are you going to shoot me?" Bulma demands angrily. "You've already hurt my baby. What the hell did I ever do to you?"

"I, I had to. I didn't have a choice."

"Right, it's not like you could have _not_ knocked me out, _not_ locked me in a closet and _not_ used information and equipment you had access to only because you're part of my lab group to hide me from my husband!" Bulma snaps. She presses the heel of her hand against her belly, for hours the baby has been kicking and fighting constantly. The sudden sharp pain followed by a cessation of movement worries her more than she wants to think about.

"You don't understand. I didn't have any other way out. I made myself too valuable, they'll never let me go. Whatever I do, whatever I give them, they always tell me it's good, but not quite good enough to clear my debt. I should have known. The only way I'll be free of them is if they're dead."

"So that's what you want Vegeta for. You want him to kill for you," Bulma realizes.

"He can deal with them, I've seen-"

"Kill, yeah," Bulma interrupts bluntly. "Vegeta can do that. At your behest, that's going to be a problem for him."

"He loves you, he'll do it to get you back. You weren't supposed to see me."

"I did see you," Bulma replies. She forces herself to stay calm. "Andrew, why don't you turn off the machine. Nothing irreparable has happened yet. Turn off the machine and I swear I'll deal with Vegeta." She isn't sure of that, isn't sure that nothing serious has happened, and if something is wrong with the baby she doesn't give a damn what Vegeta might do. But saying as much won't help her.

"It won't work now that you saw me. Normal people, we don't matter to Vegeta. He barely notices we exist. Everyone at Capsule Corp is in terror or awe of him, but we're ants in his eyes. He would have killed them and gotten you back and I wouldn't have been worth the trouble."

"You're fooling yourself. You tried to control him. Vegeta won't forget that. The only way you'll get out of this alive is with my help. Turn off the machine."

"A bee stings you, you might take a swat at it but you don't go hunt it back to the hive and kill it."

"No, you burn the whole hive." Bulma clutches at her stomach. That wasn't the baby kicking. Her eyes widen fearfully. "Turn off the machine, now. I need to get to a hospital."

Andrew stares at her. "You can't be hurt. He'll kill me."

"Please, it's the baby."

"You weren't supposed to see me. It was supposed to be more trouble than he'd bother with to find me."

"Andrew, please!"

"You weren't supposed to see. He can't know. He can't know who I am, he'll kill me."

The sound of the gun going off shocks both of them. For a moment they just stare at each other. Slowly Bulma reaches up to touch her shoulder, her hand comes away bloody.

The gun clatters to the floor. Andrew Deshay flees into the night.

* * *

Vegeta stands in the center of Andrew Deshay's livingroom, at a loss for what to do next.

A human, some random human, not even a fighter had taken Bulma, his Bulma. Vegeta had a name, he'd found the man's home. There was no one there. No Bulma, no one who might be induced to provide him with another lead, no one at all.

He can't sense Bulma. He can't sense their child. The one who took them was an ordinary human, one of billions inhabiting the planet, completely unremarkable. He can't sense his enemy or coheres the man's location from his acquaintances, he acted on his own. Vegeta knew and understood the Z-Fighter's capabilities. Like him, they were as dependent on their ki sense as he'd once been on his scouter. He was at a dead end.

' Leave it to the woman to build something that could confound our abilities so casually.'

Vegeta grimaces and flies back to Capsule Corp, back to the Security office. "You will help me locate Andrew Deshay."


	5. Now: ActionReaction

**Bad Man**

**Now: Action-Reaction**

**Disclaimer: **Character and premise are the property of Akira Toriyama, I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.

* * *

The machine, it was hiding her from Vegeta. Preventing her from getting help.

Bulma took stock of her condition: a broken heel, a bullet wound in her arm, not serious but bleeding. Contractions, and she was only five months along.

'One month short of the due-date,' Bulma reminds herself. 'That isn't so bad. Babies survive being one month premature.'

She knew that was one month out of nine, not one out of six. Further the development patterns for saiyans and humans differed. She doesn't know how bad one month early will be for _her_ baby.

She doesn't let herself think about the likelihood that this isn't simply going into labor early. That there might have been something wrong before that triggered her contractions.

'I'll destroy the machine. Then Vegeta will find me. He'll get me to a hospital or to Dende or a Senzu Bean. Or, hell they'll summon the Dragon. Everything will be alright, as soon as I find that machine.'

Bulma uses a chair as a crutch. Blood loss is making her light-headed. The room wavers in and out of focus as she searches.

Finally she finds it in a cupboard. It makes a satisfying noise as it hits the floor. Just to be sure Bulma picks up her chair and drops it on top of the machine with her whole weight behind it. The machine manages a faint wheeze as it dies.

* * *

They're on edge. Word's been spreading, someone's out to get them. Apparently it's only one guy. It should be a joke.

It's been six hours, twelve of their guys are down. Twelve that they knew of. Several of the bodies weren't pretty. This guy is not a joke.

The guy's after some mark, just some lousy mark. They're a secondary target, an afterthought, a means of killing time. They're still dying.

They don't want to run, not from just one guy. But they're starting to think about it.

The door opens. A guy they've never seen before walks in. When he tosses a body on the table they realize it's_ the_ guy.

He waits for them to react. Does nothing while they pull their guns. There is nothing he needs to do, the bullets flatten against his aura.

The fact that he's just one guy has become totally immaterial. They run.

It's as useless as the guns were. Not one of them makes it out the door. "I've already heard all about your organization, but try to tell me something new. It might be worth your life."

They look at the body. They look at him. They start talking.

"Shut up. One at a time. You first." The guy smiles. "Remember, you don't know what I've already confirmed. Lies will be punished severely." A nod toward the body. "He tried to lie."

Halfway through, the guy loses interest. He leaves, straight through the roof.

They don't waste time wondering why. They just thank their lucky stars and run.

* * *

Security at Capsule Corp wants him to bring in police. Vegeta doubts that it's a good idea. The absence of his awareness of Bulma is wearing his control thin, dangerously thin. The police will think they're in charge, they will make him mad. Then he'll do something that will result in them becoming distracted by him, by the fact his rules are not theirs. They will fixate on him and get nothing done. They'll get in his way and he'll kill them and it won't further finding Bulma.

At least they know him at Capsule Corp, they don't question his abilities, or the fact that Bulma is his to protect. But they're employing human methods to try to locate where Deshay might have gone, where his methods have failed. It takes patience they tell him. He understands the need for patience but he needs to do something. Anything, even if it's largely pointless. So to keep himself from distracting them, he goes out hunting.

Then he stops. The world around him fades away. For the first time in days he can sense Bulma's existence. The hole in the back of his mind, the emptiness that constantly screams at him that she's dead, is filled.

Her ki is ragged. Spiking upwards from fear and adrenaline, falling due to injuries and exhaustion. The child's ki is dropping precipitously, vanishing like water from a cracked vessel.

The sound barriers shatters. He ascends past Super Saiyan without consciously willing it.

The room stinks of blood fears and cordite. Bulma is crying. She never cries. She screams, rails, has a vocabulary of swear words that impresses even a life-long mercenary like him. She has a reckless disregard for danger, which amuses him when he is the potential danger. Hell it generally amuses him, he doesn't mind scaring the crap out of anyone who ought to scare her. She doesn't cry, he doesn't know how to deal with her crying.

Bulma is bleeding, the child is dying. That's easier to deal with than her tears. It's the wrong season for Senzu Beans, the current crop isn't ripe yet, the previous year's has rotted. The next option is Dende. The Namekian brat has never liked him, for good reason, but he'll heal Bulma. That's what matters.

He picks her up. She weights nothing to him but a nothing he is painfully conscious of. It's the difference between picking up a feather and egg-shell china. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face against his shoulder. "We're going to lose the baby."

And he shouldn't care. Having another child was her idea, he had only agreed reluctantly and with poor grace. He didn't have ay interest in the idea of a second child. He had no interest in the_ idea_ of the child, but for the last few months he'd been aware of the child's growing ki-signature. The child had long since gone beyond being an idea. She is real and she is his and she is dying.

//Vegeta?//

//Not now Kakarrot! Keep Trunks there.//

Dende is waiting in front of the Lookout. With his power amped up to SSJ2 every ki-sensitive on the planet is aware that he's upset. Kakarrot and possibly his elder brat are probably picking up some of his thoughts. Their saiyan blood grants them a heightened sensitivity to minor variations in ki. With familiarity those variations become a language of a sort. He doesn't believe the younger pair have the knack of it yet, they pay no attention to subtleties.

Bulma won't let him go. She cries harder when he tries to set her down. He can't simply hold her, he's certainly not tall but still too tall for Dende to look at her properly while she's in his arms. He goes to his knees.

"Fix them."

Dende nods, places a hand on Bulma's shoulder and one over the child. The bullet wound closes over. The child's energy returns.

Vegeta relaxes, but Bulma is still sobbing broken-heartedly. Then Vegeta senses it, the child's ki is still dropping. Dende's intervention was only a momentary reprieve.

"I don't know what's wrong," Dende confesses. "I don't understand mammalian reproduction, it's too alien. I'm sorry, I've done all I can."

"Premature," Bulma tries to explain, tries to hope even though she's terrified. "She's being born too early. Take me to the hospital."

"I don't know them," Vegeta protests.

"To my doctor. This happens sometimes with humans, they can help. If it's not too much too early. I don't know, I just don't know. She's not human, no data on saiyans let alone demi-saiyans. Don't know what else to do. Don't know if they can help. The Dragon Balls can raise the dead, but they can't turn back time. If she's born too early to survive I don't know if even that would save her. Vegeta, we can't let her die."

At the hospital it's Vegeta who is reluctant to let go. Hundreds of weak, inconsequential ki's lapping up on his awareness. They're too unfamiliar, too small, and too many for him to read intent. Anyone of them might try to take Bulma from him again.

It's a relief when Bulma's regular obstetrician arrives. Vegeta knows the man slightly from Bulma's appointments. He protested going, complained and was rude the whole time mostly because it's what's expected from him. And because Bulma's exasperation amuses him. But he went, and he knows this human, at least enough that he believes he could interpret ill-intent from the man.

The hospital staff sighs in relief as Vegeta steps back and allows them to work. Still he only goes as far as the door. He stations himself to control access to the room.

The feel of distrust and suspicion of everyone around him is like the old days. After the last forty-eight hours it's easy to slip into that mind-set. He will kill anyone who threatens what's his and everyone is regarded as a potential threat. If they make a wrong move, they will regret it.

When the child comes she's silent, her ki is still falling toward death and she's too small to be real. She fits easily into the doctor's cupped hand.

"Alright, let's get her transferred to the NICU," the doctor orders.

Vegeta bars the door. "She stays in this room." He can't protect both his daughter and his wife if they're separated.

"Her lungs aren't fully developed, nor is her immune system. If you don't let us treat her she is going to die."

He knows that, can feel that she's dying now. But he can't abandon Bulma, they could take her again.

The pop, the rush of raw power that is Kakarrot filling the room comes not a moment too soon.

"If anything happens to Bulma, I will kill you. I don't give a damn which of us is the stronger."

Kakarrot, annoyingly, does not take the threat seriously. Instead he grasps Vegeta's shoulder in an attempt to provide reassurance. "I'll watch her, you can go with the baby."

He steps aside, allows the doctor to take his daughter from the room, but he follows closely. He grits his teeth and does nothing while they insert tubes in his daughter's body and place her in a plastic casing that isolates her from the room. Their actions slow but don't halt her weakening toward death.

"We're doing what we can to aid her breathing. Her body weight is extremely low and several organs are not functioning fully. We're doing everything we can, but you have to be prepared for the worst."

Vegeta only listens with half an ear. He can sense what's going wrong. Trying to force her unprepared body through the simple task of living is taking more strength than his daughter has. Fighting to breath, fighting to make her heart beat, it's exhausting her to death.

He's done it before, loaned someone else his strength, generally when Kakarrot hasn't had the power to finish a battle himself. Of course this will be totally different as well. Those time had always been a matter of brute force, of simply forcing everything they could spare to Kakarrot for a few short minutes, because his Kaio-Ken meant he was the most used to managing energy beyond his own, so it was simplest to concentrate all their strength in him for the time it took to finish the battle. His daughter has no ki training, and everything about her is tiny and delicate, it will be up to him to manage the ki he sends her. She's going to need a constant infusion of strength until her body is more ready to support itself, but only in the smallest of doses, too much and it will over-whelm her system.

Vegeta steps past the doctor, dismissing him. He's done what he can and it's not enough. Vegeta grimaces, to do ths he's going to have to fully trust Kakarrot to ensure the safety of the rest of his family and to watch his back. His normal, day-to-day energy levels would leave his daughter a scorched ruin in moments. He can't afford any mistakes, can't allow any distractions.

Vegeta forces his senses to focus wholly on his daughter. He hates losing his awareness of his surroundings, it invites attack, but if he doesn't she'll die and he won't allow that. He forges a delicate link between them, replacing her strength as she spends it, but no more than that.

He's not entirely sure when Gohan arrives but the younger saiyan's silent presence watching his back is welcome, and Vegeta is able to focus even more completely on keeping his daughter alive.

She is the entirety of his world for days. She is tiny, with faint wisps of aqua-blue hair the same color as her mother's . Her eyes are also like her mother's, so very blue, but she looks at nothing. She's often cold. Vegeta has a vague awareness of the doctors treating her, of Bulma sitting beside him talking to her, but they are only on the periphery, unimportant at the moment.

He honestly knows very little of what to expect from an infant, almost equally ignorant of what could be considered normal for saiyan or human development at this stage. Trunks was eight months old when Vegeta moved back in with the Briefs, already a toddler. But he's heard Bulma's parents talk about how Trunks was born with teeth and hair, that he was sitting up within days of his birth, from their tones Vegeta has deduced that those things are not normal for a human. His daughter does none of those things. If not for the tail she'd seem very human to him.

They'll have to remove the tail as soon as she's strong enough to withstand surgery. He can't imagine a creature as fragile and tiny as his daughter surviving the violence of the Oozaru transformation.

His thoughts are wandering. Vegeta wonders how many days he's been at this as he forces his attention back to the task at hand, keeping his daughter alive.

It's becoming harder to focus. The humans coming and going are becoming a distraction. He hears Gohan's quiet reiteration; "You can't move her away from Vegeta-san. He's doing as much for her as your life-support equipment."

For as long as the humans are in the room, Gohan hovers. He projects a steady aura of reassurance. It occurs to Vegeta that the brat's attempt at deliberate mental communication is strangely inarticulate. He wonders if the demi-saiyans lack fine control of ki needed for mind-speak. Not that it's important, the Saiya-jin Elite had believed they were above the need to form close bonds with their own kind. The Saiya-jin language, the one that predated their contact with the Truffles, had been a relic only spoken by the Third Class for generations before his birth, Vegeta himself only picked it up due to his association with Raditz. The realization that he and Kakarrot are the only ones left physiologically capable of speaking in the old way shouldn't bother him.

His thoughts are wandering again. Using so very little energy shouldn't be exhausting. He used to be capable of fighting for days on end when he had to. He's never tried using his ki in such a tightly restricted form before. 'Focus.'

He realizes Kakarrot has been escorting Bulma to and from the NICU, he's taking his promise seriously. 'Good.'

Trunks and Goten come and go at random. They're subdued by the hospital. They project worry and confusion overlaying their curiosity.

"Vegeta, you need to eat." Bulma hands him a ration bar. She's right, after he's eaten it's easier to maintain focus. So like her to figure out what he needs and how to provide it.

"If you want to sleep, I can take over for a while," Gohan offers. Vegeta doesn't think it's for the first time, but before the words didn't reach him, they were just another, irrelevant detail to be screened out.

Now? Now it's worth thinking about. If it were Kakarrot he'd decline without hesitation. These days he'll admit, if generally only to himself, that he values Kakarrot as an ally, a friend. But not for this, he doesn't trust the exuberant earth-raised saiyan with anything delicate. Gohan is another matter, the eldest of the demi-saiyans is careful and thoughtful, very different from the rest of them. Still, Gohan's inability to express anything more than generalities using mental-speech implies less fine control over his ki than a full saiyan would possess.

Besides, she's his daughter and he wants to do it himself. Poor thinking. Old habit of self-reliance to the point of stupidity. The reason he lost that first battle he fought on Earth. Most beneficial loss he ever suffered.

'Focus.'

Which is worse? Gohan's abilities or his exhaustion. Lying to himself about his abilities, his excessive pride has cost him before, but nothing so dear as what is at stake this time.

"She's more stable now, you got her past the worst. Let me help."

Vegeta nods, steps back and allows Gohan to take over for him. He leans against the wall, slips down it. He's asleep before he hits the floor.

His daughter is eight days old.


	6. Epilogue

**Bad Man**

**Epilogue: Full Circle  
**

**Disclaimer: **Characters and premise are the property of Akira Toriyama, I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.

* * *

Five weeks after their daughter's birth, Vegeta and Bulma take her home. Bulma named her Bra while Vegeta was distracted by keeping her alive. He complains about the name, but if they'd left it to him she'd still be in need of one.

Bra is still terribly small. There's a special light they're supposed to expose her to each day to help keep her from becoming jaundiced, whatever that is. They've got a list of instructions on things to watch for and things to do. But the doctors are tentatively hopeful about her prognosis.

A week later, when Capsule Corp's head of security arrives for the start of his shift he finds Vegeta waiting for him.

"I'm taking over. The next time something happens I will see to it that you are less inadequate."

"Okay. What do we do?"

"First, you will teach me your current methodologies."

In the following month the security personnel at Capsule Corp begin to learn to focus and make use of their ki. And Vegeta learns enough about how humans track one another to locate Andrew Deshay.

When Vegeta had been a very small child he'd believed that he could protect the things he cared about through obedience to Freiza. Then for a very long time he'd had nothing to protect. When that had changed he'd fought against it, hadn't wanted to accept it and certainly hadn't considered it a good thing for a very, very long time.

Once he would have made the mistake of trying to satisfy his pride before anything else. This time he'd taken care of his family first.

Vegeta watched Deshay's fearful routines. Apparently anticipation of what was coming to him has kept the worm company during the three months reprieve Vegeta had allowed him while dealing with more important things.

Vegeta smiled darkly. "You don't have much longer to worry about what I might do," he said to himself as he landed directly in the path of Deshay's speeding car.


End file.
